How soon on the war in Europe ends may depend in some measure on how successfully the Allied nations handle the problem of relief in the territory they occupy on the continent of Europe. The Nazi radio has been incessantly assuring the peoples in the Axis satellite nations that the inhabitants of northern Africa, of Sicily, of southern and central Italy, and now of Normandy are in worse economic condition than prior to the Allied occupation. On July 15 the Italian Socialist leader, Pietro Nenni, deploring in the Italian newspaper L'Avanti the Allied treatment of Italy, charged that three-fourths of the people of Naples were living in “beggary, prostitution, peddling, and black-marketing” ten and one-half months after the Allied capture of Naples.

To the extent that these charges are credited in Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, and Finland, to that extent those countries may well delay their departure from the Axis military camp. Conversely, to the extent that the Allies can refute the Nazi charges convincingly, and can persuade the Bulgarians, the Rumanians, the Hungarians, and the Finns that they will fare better under Allied occupation than under their present pro-Axis regimes, that much sooner those countries may be impelled to withdraw from the war and hence weaken the German power of resistance. In World War I the armistice with Germany was preceded only six weeks by the unconditional surrender of Bulgaria, then as now the ally of Germany.

The difficult undertaking of administering relief in the regions occupied by the Allied armies has up to now been admittedly far from completely successful. That problem is part of the larger problem of relief for all Europe, also for parts of Asia and Oceania, during the war and after the war.